NDP supporters call for further changes, including a fresh look at environmental/economic policy

Lori Culbert, Vancouver Sun09.18.2013

Vancouver-Fairview NDP MLA George Heyman, shown manning the phones at his campaign office on May 14, is being touted by some as a good potential leader because of his experience in both labour and the environmental movement.

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As NDP members contemplate who will become their next leader, political observers say there needs to be more than just a change at the top for the party to win the next election.

Environmental groups and trade unions — part of the NDP’s key support base — say the party needs to achieve other goals, ranging from attracting more youth to developing a consistent industrial strategy, and meshing environmental and economic policies.

On Wednesday, Adrian Dix announced he would step down as party leader, four months after he led his party to a disastrous election defeat.

“I have tried to put the long-term success of the B.C. NDP ahead of any personal ambitions,” added Dix, who has ties to the B.C. NDP dating back to 1991 but has only led the party since April 2011.

Dix delivered a longer speech to his constituents Wednesday night at a community centre in his Vancouver-Kingsway riding, where he has been elected for three straight terms.

Tom Sigurdson, of the 23,000-strong B.C. and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council, believes the NDP lost the last election because it didn’t have a set strategy about what message to send voters about its industrial policies.

As a result, Sigurdson surmised, Dix was able to “freewheel” during the campaign, and ultimately made the flip-flop on the Kinder Morgan pipeline, which likely alienated many tradespeople who typically support the NDP.

“The members of the building trades, the guys that work on the tools, their primary concern is a job to go to that pays well and they want to be able to be productive and work safely, and that’s got to be articulated by a leader in the form of an industrial strategy,” said Sigurdson.

He also said the NDP could run a more effective campaign by adopting better technology that has been used in some U.S. and Canadian campaigns, such as voter-identification software and social media tools.

Sigurdson believes the party needs a new leader but declined to say who he would support.

Perhaps one of the historical challenges for the NDP has been marrying the demands of trade unions with the desires of another strong voter base: environmentalists.

But Bob Peart, incoming director of the Sierra Club of B.C., said the traditional conflict between the environment and the economy is “an old story.” He said the NDP should develop a platform that binds those two key issues, such as the “green jobs” initiatives pursued by U.S. President Barack Obama.

Peart also said future NDP policies and the party’s next leader must attract more youth and convince them to vote.

“If they are transitioning to a new NDP — whatever that may be — that has to be fundamentally wrapped around the thoughts and feelings of where youth are at today,” Peart said.

“I think people are searching for hope. They are tired of the sky falling. I think some of that hope can come from youth.”

Ben West, of the Vancouver-based environmental group Forest Ethics Advocacy, supports new NDP MLA George Heyman as a potential leadership candidate.

He noted Heyman is a lifelong environmentalist and was also a labour leader, and has the vision to find common ground in those two ideals.

“He is one of the people who some of the green folks in the NDP are looking to for leadership,” West said.

But regardless of who leads the NDP next, West argued the party needs to deliver much stronger messages in the 2017 election. He pointed to parties such as Vision Vancouver, which has successfully identified bold principles and values during its campaigns.

The NDP in May, West argued, was missing a vision and was soft on some issues, such as pipelines.

“The party was resting on its laurels in the last election because it seemed like Christy Clark was on her way out,” he said.

The B.C. NDP has about 25,000 members who will vote for the new leader. More members can join, but they must belong to the party for at least 90 days before the leadership election or they cannot vote.

In 2011, when Dix was elected, members cast their votes by phone or online by using unique pin numbers that had been mailed to them. There was a 70-per-cent participation rate.

The NDP has no rule in its constitution about how long the party can be leaderless. After the 2009 election loss, Carole James resigned in December 2010 and Dix was elected in April 2011. Dawn Black, the interim leader during those five months, was chosen by the NDP caucus.

The timing of the leadership convention must be approved by the NDP’s provincial council, which is headed by former NDP cabinet minister Moe Sihota.

Some party insiders have also called for Sihota to resign his position of party president. His two-year term is up in November. Dix declined to comment Wednesday on whether he thought Sihota should also step down.

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NDP supporters call for further changes, including a fresh look at environmental/economic policy

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